In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how two things that were almost the complete opposite of each other can both be true at the same time. My example was how it’s the social norm to greet each other with small talk. “Hello, how are you?” I’m good, and you?” Or, “Hey,” with a nod and a smile. The social custom varies depending on the region, but it’s all for the same reason. It’s a version of “I acknowledge you as a fellow human.” “I acknowledge you in return.”
I’ve made my peace with it. I know this is not going to change and that it’s fairly harmless. Now that I understand it’s not really about caring how the other person is, but is a way to just smoothly start an interaction, I’m fine with it. Would I rather not have to do it? Yeah. Anything that would take away an instant of me having to pretend to perform humanity is a good thing to me.
The thing is, no matter how many scripts I have memorized, one surprise question will always throw me into a loop. I’m like a computer in that way. I don’t do well without my scripts. I didn’t even realize this was a thing until very recently–that I had scripts, I mean.
It was when an friend of mine who has autism and I were talking about growing up as a weirdo. She is alos bi and other minorities, so she could relate to the way I felt as I child. I gave her an example to illustrate what I meant.
When someone would tell me a piece of news, I would have no internal reaction. Didn’t matter what the news was. Pregnancy, new job, death in the family, it was all the same to me. I would have to take several seconds to digest what the other person had told me. Them: (telling me their news). Me: (my brain) …. Me: (my brain) Oh, I need to say something. Scrambles for somethin to say. Fumbling with my words, I come up with something appropriate and then breathe a sigh of relief. Most of the time, the awkwardness is merely internal and not noticed by the other person.
Here’s the thing. I truly do feel whatever emotion I am trying to convey. deep down inside. However, my feels on the surface are very flat. Any time I try to feel them, it’s as if the feeling is wrapped under a thousand layers of bubble wrap. So it’s deadened and squishy.
When I explained this to my friend, she gently let me know that’s what autism is like.
Side note: K and I had a heated argument about mental health issues being less taboo these days. We both agree it’s a good thing that we’ve made progress on identifying issues and getting/having help for them. However, she was concerned that it might have gone too far in the opposite direction and younger people were identifying too much with their mental health issues. Or rather, not coming up with strategies to deal with them. She also questioned if everything had to be a disorder.
I’m not paraphrasing exactly right, but that was the gist of her worries. She said, “We just learned to deal with it.” Which hit a nerve in me. I said sharply that I didn’t deal with it well and had I known at a young age that I was probably neurodivergent, that would have helped me a great deal with so many things.
I was sharp because I feel ilke I’ve lost so many years to that, but also to my depression and anxiety. I knew from a very young age that I was depressed, but not that I had anxiety. That realization came much later, and the problem was that I had no encouragement from my family to make it better.
I don’t fault my pparents for not knowing about neurodivergency–not back in the seventies and the eighties. Even though my mother is a psychologist. Also, if anybody in my family was gonig to be tagged with neurodivergency (autism), it would be my brother. He had the classic male symptoms: constantly fidgety; obsessed with mechanical things, even at a young age; had to have things his way or he’d melt down; did not talk until four or so, which made the meltdowns even harder on my mother, etc.
By the time we were in our twenties, I knew that my brother was on the spectrum, even if I did not have the vocabulary to describe it. Me, though. I had no clue that that was even a possibility. When autism started to enter the public conscious, it was hammered home that it was a boy thing. Oh, and my brother didn’t like to be touched, had difficulty with eye contact, and was not good with expressing emotions. Nor is he very empathetic.
On the other hand, I had learned social norms to a painful degree. Mostly because my mother had very definite ideas of what I, a girl child, should be. My sole purpose was to be her emotional support person, which meant I had to be excruciatingly in tune with her emotions. And to be endlessly nurturing (which is NOT my natural state of being).
By now, it’s second nature. But I hate it. I don’t want to be the emotional support person for the world. I have a high rate of strangers telling me things about themselves that I would really rather not know, and I know why it happens. It’s because I will ask questions when I shouldn’t, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Even when I don’t do that, though, I still get people droning on and on to me.
When my friend told me to try out some online autism tests, she said I should try to unmask as much as possible. In other words, I should try to answer the questions as I truly would, not as I am now. Such as, “I feel comfortable in social situations” (on a Likert with strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree (I think)). I thought about the each statement, and I really couldn’t tell you what my honest response would be. Because I’ve been so trained to be agreeable, pleasant, and to reach out to others, I have no idea what my true self would say or do.
The only time I had difficulty with someone at a party was when they completely dropped their end of the conversation. I asked them a question, and they gave me a one-word answer. Then silence. I would ask another question. One word answer. Silence. After five minutes, I gave up, made my excuses, and went to talk to someone else.
I don’t like parties, though I can appear outwardly that I’m good at them. I always feel so uncomfortable and like I’m sticking out with how weird I am. No matter how smooth I can be in my interactions, I just feel liek a complete dork.
And still, I understand that I have to do it. I have to do the meaningless social pleasantries. And, honestly, I don’t mind so much wehn it’s just a ten-second exchange at the store or whatever. But if I had to work in an office, I think it would wear away at me. It did when I actually worked in an office. Trying so hard to be normal when I felt anything but inside really gound me down.
It was the worst when I was in my twenties because I just thought I was stupid for not understanding things that other people seemed to get without saying a word.
That’s all for now. More tomorrow.